Food Tours & Travel

Uncover a world of authentic, mouth-watering food tours & travel designed to suit any budget, appetite and time frame. By pairing the classic grassroots Intrepid travel style with a special food focus, our itineraries aim to really get you under the skin of the world's most exciting food cultures, be it chomping a trail through Thailand's food markets, whipping up Peruvian delicacies under the tutelage of passionate local cooks or touring Tuscan vineyards.

These are real-world experiences with a foodie twist: one part culture, one part adventure and three parts delicious. From bite-sized trips to gastronomic odysseys, we’ll get you munching, crunching, sipping and slurping just like the locals.

Our Food Adventure tour styles

Real Food Adventures

8-15 days

These are cross-country food tours designed to fully immerse you in a destination's food scene. Taste the freshest market produce, meet artisanal producers, find the best street food and learn the subtle changes in regional cuisine. But although these trips are packed with flavour, we haven't left out the essence of Intrepid travel: each real food adventure is filled with cultural exploration, historic highlights and plenty of grassroots travel. They're just seasoned to perfection - food travel at its best!

Bite-Sized Breaks

2-3 days

If you’re looking to take a bite from a particular region and don’t have a lot of time to do it, Bite-Sized Breaks are for you. They’re more focussed food itineraries, usually 2-3 days each, which dig down into the heart of a specific area. Whether it’s Beijing’s street market scene, Lima’s distinct local flavour or the cooking techniques of Northern India. They make a tasty add-on to a longer itinerary, delving a little deeper into what makes a region’s cooking unique. While these food tours may be a little shorter, they pack a punch.

Urban Appetisers

2-6 hours

These are our compact food tours, carefully designed to pack the most flavour into the shortest time. When you arrive in a new city, it’s always a challenge to unearth the most authentic local cuisine. But with Urban Appetisers, we’ll give you a quick 3-4 hour intro into the hidden gems and secret bars that really make a place tick. Cook up a storm in a local family’s own kitchen, kebab crawl your way through Istanbul, or find the trendiest eats in the backstreets of Brooklyn.

Browse food tours by region

In 2016 $3 from every Real Food Adventure sold will go towards culinary skills training for locals in Cambodia. By booking a Real Food Adventure, you’ll not only be munching your way through some of the best street-level food in the world, you’ll also be eating for a really good cause.

FAQs

Expect to eat the local way. We didn’t call these trips ‘food adventures’ for nothing. Forget Michelin stars and 20-course degustations – our local leaders will help you get behind the scenes of a local food culture, track down the freshest street food, discover the most authentic local restaurants and reveal the traditions and techniques that make these destinations so deliciously mouth-watering. From lining up with locals for fresh tortillas in a Mexican market to hopping between Logrono’s thriving tapas bars, they’ll show you local food from the perspective of those who eat it every day.

All of our food trips have been designed with one thing in mind – experiencing the best local food on the planet. But we all know that there’s much more to food than just eating it – so whether it’s browsing markets for fresh produce, sizzling up a storm in a cooking class or meeting a local street-food legend, we’ve stuffed your plate to the brim. And once you’ve devoured all the local food you can handle, we’ve made sure our Food Adventures are rolled up into a burrito with the lot so you won’t miss out on the iconic sights and authentic cultural experiences that are found on all our Intrepid trips.

Like all Intrepid itineraries, we’ve made sure our food trips provide free time between activities, allowing you to digest a destination either with your group or on your own. You might spend the morning exploring a buzzing local market with your guide and cooking a delicious local dish with your group before heading off on your own to wander the marbled halls of a museum or cycling through ancient alleys. We’ve also left plenty of mealtimes free of organised activities, which gives you the flexibility to ‘get your gourmet on’ at a fine dining restaurant or simply seek out your own ‘real food’ adventure. Needless to say, your leader will be there every step of the way with suggestions and recommendations.

Sometimes, the best way to eat like a local is to travel like one too. That could mean jumping on a boat to discover the flavours of the Mekong Delta, riding the Tokyo subway to a sake bar or rattling along in a rickshaw in pursuit of Agra’s finest chaats. We love to use local transport because it gives us a chance to experience everyday local life from a new perspective.

Whether you’re spending the night in an ancient fortress or in the home of a local family, most of our trips include a memorable overnight stay that is designed to make your trip extra memorable. When we do choose to use hotels, all of our accommodation options are in our Original style, which means a mix of 2-3 star establishments that are safe, clean and comfortable.

It goes without saying that by eating in local restaurants, buying things from street-side sellers and using local guides, our trips help support local economies. But that’s just the start of it. Many of our itineraries incorporate visits to community projects and we offer carbon offsetting on all of our food trips. Above all, we are committed to a style of travel that is culturally, environmentally and socially responsible.

Traveller reviews

Karen Holper

What a fabulous tour! We visited so many places, had a terrific tour guide who was informative, helpful and passionate. I ate so many wonderful foods that I would never of tried on my own and they tasted fantastic! The places we visited were fantastic. I now know so much about Cambodian culture, history and the country. Wow! I had a fantastic time.